Soaring

Chapter 3

Flying usually lifts my mood no matter how upset I am, but today it wasn't doing me any good. Corro and I were flying to the tomb bloom meadow to see our parents, so there wasn't much conversation.

"You ready?" I asked Corro as we landed on the sopping grass, in a clearing not far from the meadow.

"I guess, you?"

"Yeah, let's go in." We found the path and followed it to the meadow. It was more beautiful than I had remembered. There were tons of flowers all bright and happy colors which irritated me a lot. All the flowers and colors couldn't hide the sadness that was here. There were two other people sitting at tomb blooms.

That's when I saw it...my parents. My mom's best friend, Nyx, who we call our Aunt, was there with a bouquet of white tulips, my mom's favorite. "Hi, how are you girls?" Corro and I shrugged in response. Nyx sighed, and we sat down.

I pulled the elixir out of my pocket and poured its contents out. But instead of falling to the ground, like a normal liquid, it formed a bubble in the air. Suddenly, the bubble exploded, and little shards of glass fell all over the grass and flowers. The tomb blooms and grass shimmered with a new excellence.

I fell to my knees and closed my eyes, refusing to let the tears fall. I hugged my chest, trying to keep myself together. I stayed like that for who knows how long.

When I finally came to my senses and shook myself out of my stupor, something felt off. Then I realized what.

Corro was missing.

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"Corro! Corro, where are you?"

I was stuck in the forest, and Coro was nowhere to be found. The Leaders were hiding something, I could tell.

I didn't trust them. But what could I do? I tugged on my bracelet, the gift from The Leaders when I was born.

Was I ready for this?

What if I-

My thoughts were interrupted by the crack of a snapped twig. I braced myself, ready for a fight as something came barreling towards me.

Then the heavy footfalls stopped and I heard panting off to my left. I parted the heavy rainforest leaves, and stepped forward. To my surprise, a wingless mortal was staring back at me. He looked around him and bolted, clearly afraid of me. For a second, I couldn't move. There hadn't been a mortal spotted in the Dark Forest for decades, maybe even centuries.

I decided to follow it. I easily caught up with it because of the mortal's inferior speed. It ran in circles clearly not knowing where it was going so I decided to attack. I waited for the perfect time to strike then pounced out of the bushes and tackled it. I stood, and glowered over it.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" I demanded, while it laid on the ground, as if it had never been tackled before.

"I will only ask you one more time! Who are you?"

And, because it was a pathetic mortal, it did what mortals do best. It screamed.